Hardware maker Xi3 is pushing back against Valve's attempts to distance itself from Xi3's $1,000 Piston PC-in-a-console, setting off a debate about what, precisely, is meant by the heavily bandied-about term "Steam Box."

When Xi3 first unveiled the Piston (then simply called a "modular computer chassis") at CES in January, the company trumpeted a monetary investment from Valve and highlighted how the system was designed to play Steam games on high-definition TVs and large monitors using Steam's Big Picture mode. But soon after Xi3 started taking preorders for the Piston over the weekend, Valve put out a statement saying that it "began some exploratory work with Xi3 last year, but currently has no involvement in any product of theirs."

Xi3 came out with its own statement today reaffirming its relationship with Valve, saying that the Piston was a product Valve specifically asked the company to build. While the statement seems to acknowledge that Valve is not currently directly involved with Piston development, Xi3 clarified that "just because Valve may not 'currently' have any 'involvement with any product of ours doesn't mean that such involvement won't exist in the future."

More importantly, though, Xi3 noted that the Piston will be able to run Steam games "regardless of what our relationship is or isn't with Valve." Moreover, "Piston will also support a raft of other Internet-based gaming and entertainment platforms, which is more than what Valve apparently has planned for its official Steam Box.

"In this way, the Piston Console could be perceived as something more than just a Steam Box..." the statement continues.

The whole back-and-forth brings up an important question: what exactly does it mean to be a "Steam Box?" In a sense, any computer that can run Steam could be considered a Steam Box. That's not a very useful characterization, though, since by that standard practically every Windows, Mac, and Linux PC qualifies.

In general, the "Steam Box" concept as Valve has discussed it connotes hardware designed for comfortable use in the living room through Steam's Big Picture interface. This usually means a small, simple, console-style form factor, rather than a big, boxy, energy-hogging PC tower sitting next to your entertainment center. It also means a focus on wireless handheld controllers rather than a keyboard and mouse.

By this definition, the small, power-sipping Piston could definitely be considered a Steam Box. But that doesn't mean it should be confused for the Steam Box, which is the game-playing hardware Valve is currently working on internally (the company seems to be preparing to release it as a prototype in the coming months). Valve has been incredibly cagey about precisely what it has planned for this "official" Steam Box architecture, but it will probably set the standard for what will be expected from third-party hardware makers jumping on the Steam Box bandwagon.

And make no mistake, Valve isn't opposed to other hardware makers creating their own Steam Boxes. Cofounder Gabe Newell has said many times that he expects a variety of Steam Boxes from a variety of vendors at a variety of points on the price and hardware spectrum. It's unclear how directly Valve would be involved in these "unofficial" Steam boxes, but it's not out of the question that the company could create some sort of certification program that gives an official "Steam Box" designation to machines that meet certain performance and feature standards. In the absence of such a program, though, the "Steam Box" name is kind of up for grabs for the time being.

Then there's the OS. The official Steam Box developed by Valve will probably be based on Linux to lower costs and to reflect Newell's growing dissatisfaction with Windows. But the selection of Linux games on Steam is not very robust at the moment, to say the least, which could be quite the limiting factor for the official hardware. Xi3, for its part, has clarified that the Piston will ship with a Windows operating system at its core, so it can support the platform "where the vast bulk of game software and computer gamers are today."

There's also the implication that the Piston is somehow better than Valve's official box because it will be able to run non-Steam games and apps. Here, Xi3 probably goes a little too far. Newell has publicly talked about the benefits of Steam Box's open PC architecture, including the ability to run things like Facebook, Twitter, and iTunes "without having to worry, 'Oh my god, how are we going to get that application running on our TV.'" Just because a Steam Box can run Steam, in other words, doesn't mean it can only run Steam.

So where does all this leave us? We can't really put it better than Xi3 did in wrapping up its latest statement. "In closing, what Valve does or doesn't do with its Steam Box will be up to them. So Gabe, it's up to you. The ball is in your court." Until Valve picks up that ball, though, it's probably safe to call the Piston a Steam Box for the time being.

146 Reader Comments

A Haswell mac mini at $600 would be an good alternative to this, though. And in a far more attractive form factor than the Piston.

It would, except that while the 650 is fine for most games released in the past 5 years, it's way too slow for next-gen console ports.

Honestly, my ideal solution would be a mac mini with a thunderbolt external PCI-e enclosure holding an enthusiast-level graphics card. But nobody seems to be releasing that, even though we're all in a "take my money please" type situation.

I think we've already determined that you can't price a PC for mass consumption that will be high-end at a price that competes with consoles. At some point, I think performance is the compromise that will need to be made. $1000 isn't too much to ask for a mid-to-high end desktop PC, but it's definitely too much to ask for a console.

This bit of public showmanship from Xi3 strikes me as fairly unprofessional. I surely wouldn't want to team up with a group of loose cannons like this were I Valve.

If what Xi3 is saying is then its Valve who are acting unprofessionally. If Valve commissioned the hardware as Xi3 are correct in saying they are working with Valve and Valve should not have said otherwise.

Also releasing a statement disassociating themselves from Xi3 just after they announce pre-orders as opposed to when the Piston was actually announced (and garnered Valve more mainstream news attention) is just a douche move.

Again, speculation, but it sounds like Valve did not commission the hardware. Valve probably approached them, Alienware, and many other manufacturers to discuss plans to work on a Steambox or at least to lay out the required Steambox "certification" spec.

Discussing potential partnerships and investing time and energy in them DOES NOT mean that all plans are solid and driving preorders through such winks and nudges does not mean that plans were at any point solid and more than testing Xi3's capabilities to scale and represent Valve's brand properly.

You're assuming a lot when it could easily have been Xi3's douchiness overplaying their hand.

I guess my monstrous, under powered "Steam Box" I've been using on my TV isn't a Steam Box because of it's size alone.

I do like the Big Picture Mode. Works really well and has an interesting UI, but sometimes you need to switch to mouse and keyboard which kinda throws me off a bit; especially since I haven't replace my old, broken wireless keyboard and mouse.

I am happy that the Xi3 is using a lot of the same components that will eventually be in my box.

By the end of the year I'll be running:

AMD A10 5800K ASUS Radeon HD 6670 1GB GDDR5 8-16GB 1866MHz DDR3

Considering the Xi3 is reliant only on the A10, my computer will be slightly more powerful, but vastly larger in size.

This machine plays a lot of games on high settings. Dx11 features have to be turned off for most games, but I can get decent performance at 1080p on some new games running with high settings across the board. Definitely not able to do Ultra settings for newer high-end games.

[edit notes: added the following thoughts regarding what a "steam box" actually is]

As for which machines will be considered official "Steam Boxes" and what qualifies them... I don't really care. As long as the machine can run Steam in Big Picture mode on a TV and play the games, then it's good enough.

This is probably a BIG challenge Valve is facing with trying to present their concepts to the world.

You are joking right..? You expect people to be willing to waste time tweaking to play Windows games under Linux? This is something that is supposed to be as easy to use as any gaming console. Last i checked you don't need to do any tweaking to get your games to play properly on any console. Anyway, it seems you have forgotten the whole reason Valve made this move. Fact is Steam was released for Linux to start promoting LINUX gaming not Windows gaming.

Exactly. Wine is not the answer. The answer is putting pressure on developers to make more Linux games. Valve could be part of that answer (and arguably, it already has gotten that ball rolling with Steam for Linux).

If Valve really wants to get that ball rolling and pressure devs, they should release Half Life 3 as a Linux exclusive.

re:Gaming on Linux - if they port DotA2, Team Fortress 2 and a few other of the "big" Valve owned games that in itself will be a major impact.

Didn't they do that for Mac, and Mac is what 3% of all Steam users, trailing behind Windows Vista!

Mac is not a great comparison. Linux is still PC, which is still a huge market, especially when it comes to gaming. PC People aren't locked into Windows7 like they are Mac. Linux has a lot going for it to appeal to current Windows7 or even more, Windows8 users. Ubuntu and Valve can and will make some dents into Windows and Steam users, it's just a matter of if the Steam Box can make it a huge dent or not.

How are Mac People locked into Mac? There is no requirement to run OSX on an apple branded computer.

Except, without the additional (larger) internal Hard Drive, the Xi3 is only 499.00 not 1000 - looks to be a lesser processor/gpu combo. And the X7A is more expensive than the Piston.

Too bad they don't sell any of their cases separate --- not even the external drive enclosure - the only way to get their "curvy" drive enclosure is cough up way too much money for the size drive that they sell inside it.

Not sure why there's confusion over the entire "Steam Box" [attempted?] takeover of "HTPC." It's an easily grasped and relate-able label, versus an acronym with poor broader market penetration. It also ties back to Steam directly, and thus to Valve, so it's huge marketing for the service even if these are "nothing more" than nicely packaged HTPCs.

Personally I just hope all of the "Steam Box" hype leads to a drop in pricing on decent mini ITX boards and enclosures.

Blows my mind that this kind of un-does the benefits of PC gaming over console game (configurability, upgradability etc), while paying a console-esque price premium? Seems to me that there are lots of AV-stand friendly HTPC style cases and a whole slew of wireless controllers available to people to play any sort of Windows (or whatever) base game they could ever want to? Really not seeing the benefit to buying one of these things at all, knowing that most people are capable o building their own computers whether they know it now or not!

My thoughts behind what a 'Steam box' would be is something along the lines of playing steam games in 1080p at reasonable frame rates and settings, while likely running with some form of linux that is optimized for gameplay and default interface is some form of the steam big screen mode.

Otherwise, it's the equivalent of a Steam approved sticker on an HTPC.

This device runs on a R-464L, the R-Series APU from AMD that has an integrated Radeon HD 7660G GPU runs at 497 MHz, or up to 686 MHz in Turbo mode, and has 384 shader units. The 7660G won't be getting you much in the gaming department, running games like Dead Space 3 only on the absolute lowest settings. The price of this device is absurd, as consumers can pick up this APU, which is an A10-4600M, for about 130USD without bulk pricing. Anyone who buys this is out of their minds.

As to all of the Xi3 vs Valve noise, to me it sounds like Xi3 overstated their initial relationship with Valve, in a way that made Valve uncomfortable. It sounds as if maybe Valve wanted to be a silent investor, but Xi3 turned around and made that investment public (even if they didn't disclose further details). From the latest Xi3 press release, they sound incredibly juvenile and difficult to deal with, so it's no surprise Valve discontinued whatever relationship they did have, if the types of statements made in the release are at all indicative of how dealings between the two were going behind closed doors.

I mean, comments like

Quote:

But just because Valve may not 'currently' have any 'involvement with any product of (ours)' doesn't mean that such involvement won't exist in the future.

and

Quote:

Additionally, PISTON will also support a raft of other Internet-based gaming and entertainment platforms, which is more than what Valve apparently has planned for its official Steam Box.

and

Quote:

"In closing, what Valve does or doesn't do with its Steam Box will be up to them. So Gabe, it's up to you. The ball is in your court."

range from poorly conceived to completely lacking any class (or sense of being politic) to simply stupid. Particularly for what is supposed to be an official press release. Much of that could have been stated in ways that trumped up their product without throwing in the trashy digs that weren't even very intelligent or insightful. If you really need to trash talk, do it outside of official PR so that it's deniably just that person spouting a bit and not your company's official stance.

I mean, really, it's so hard to see why Valve no longer has any relationship with Xi3.

Dedicated PC gamers will scoff at the price/performance factor (never mind the need to add Windows as a cost factor if you want real game support).

HTPC users already know how to minimize both cost and form factor.

Console only gamers will laugh at the price/performance ratio versus the PS4, WiiU, and next Xbox consoles.

Those in-between, will be best suited by a custom built PC and one or two consoles of choice (for not much more than a single Xi3 box).

So - who is this device targeted towards? I'm not trying to being dense or snarky; I really want to know!

Considering the PS4 is built on the same platform the Xi3 is built on, the R-Series APUs and is using a mildly less capable APU compared to the rumored PS4's A10-5800K then it is for people who want a PS4 with less performance and costing more than twice as much.

Beefier internal components, particularly the graphics card. You can get away with spending much less than $100 on a GPU that will output 2D 1080p video just fine (plenty of integrated GPUs work, either on the motherboard or on-die Intel HD graphics). For modern 3D games though, a better GPU really makes the largest improvement in performance.

To a lesser degree, CPU and RAM requirements are higher for games. If you're using a HTPC for video transcoding or some other intensive process, then you might already want these beefed up. But for normal HD video playback you could probably still get by with just a single-core CPU and 2 GB RAM. Hell, a $35 Raspberry Pi can do it (assuming you don't need Silverlight or other Windows-only codecs).

So you could probably consider a "Steam Box" as a HTGPC (Home Theater/Gaming PC), a subset of HTPCs on the higher end. Of course we're still waiting on Valve's recommendations, but even those will likely change every couple years as hardware improves.

A Haswell mac mini at $600 would be an good alternative to this, though. And in a far more attractive form factor than the Piston.

It would, except that while the 650 is fine for most games released in the past 5 years, it's way too slow for next-gen console ports.

Honestly, my ideal solution would be a mac mini with a thunderbolt external PCI-e enclosure holding an enthusiast-level graphics card. But nobody seems to be releasing that, even though we're all in a "take my money please" type situation.

You and about 5 other guys.

Pretty much everyone else thinks it's a mind bogglingly bad idea bound to be both horribly expensive and just plain horrible to look at.

...all because Apple refuses to sell a non-workstation in a standard form factor.

External GPU? Hideous! People would never go for it! Ignore than external harddrives have been a thing for years now (and likely a requirement with the xi3 just to store games). Fairly average Windows API translator that runs on an OS used by a very small percentage of the population? That's mass market! Brilliant idea! Millions should use it!

Actually, it doesn't exist because Thunderbolt would struggle with an enthusiast level GPU, I believe it's only a 1x PCI-E port (more like the mini PCI-E ports on a motherboard than a full blown one). It'd be possible to make a proprietary version, but then that's difficult to maintain without selling it for a hugely inflated price. If a port could be made that was fast enough, it'd be a trivially easy thing to do, essentially it's the same bus just connected externally, like an external harddrive you'd have a small adapter and a cable running between them. It might add $50 to the price of the GPU, but that's not horribly expensive.

Dedicated PC gamers will scoff at the price/performance factor (never mind the need to add Windows as a cost factor if you want real game support).

HTPC users already know how to minimize both cost and form factor.

Console only gamers will laugh at the price/performance ratio versus the PS4, WiiU, and next Xbox consoles.

Those in-between, will be best suited by a custom built PC and one or two consoles of choice (for not much more than a single Xi3 box).

So - who is this device targeted towards? I'm not trying to being dense or snarky; I really want to know!

Considering the PS4 is built on the same platform the Xi3 is built on, the R-Series APUs and is using a mildly less capable APU compared to the rumored PS4's A10-5800K then it is for people who want a PS4 with less performance and costing more than twice as much.

Are you conveniently forgetting the benefits of a proprietary system versus an open architecture?

Like it or not, consoles can do much more on limited hardware due to developers ability to dedicate programing to a single architecture. Look at what the PS3 can do in Heavy Rain. The game looks every but as nice as Crysis 2 (save the update that included super hi-res textures and DX11 usage like tesselation). Meanwhile, the rig to run Crysis 2 with full DX11 features and hi-res textures costs more than a PS3 or Xbox360.

I love me some high end PC gaming (my recent build is insane*). But, I well know that API's are bottlenecks to performance. Hence why high end rigs can push more polys and textures, but don't look significantly better than console counterparts (even when developed for PC first).

The Xi3 will be in the same boat - expect zero performance gains from this box, versus what you privately build for yourself with similar components!

* (note, this build will be familiar with my friends from another PC dedicated site )

I guess my monstrous, under powered "Steam Box" I've been using on my TV isn't a Steam Box because of it's size alone.

I do like the Big Picture Mode. Works really well and has an interesting UI, but sometimes you need to switch to mouse and keyboard which kinda throws me off a bit; especially since I haven't replace my old, broken wireless keyboard and mouse.

I am happy that the Xi3 is using a lot of the same components that will eventually be in my box.

By the end of the year I'll be running:

AMD A10 5800K ASUS Radeon HD 6670 1GB GDDR5 8-16GB 1866MHz DDR3

Considering the Xi3 is reliant only on the A10, my computer will be slightly more powerful, but vastly larger in size.

This machine plays a lot of games on high settings. Dx11 features have to be turned off for most games, but I can get decent performance at 1080p on some new games running with high settings across the board. Definitely not able to do Ultra settings for newer high-end games.

Your new system may be 5x as big as the Xi3, but it will still be small.You can make a full quad core system with dedicated dual slot GPU in a form factor the same size as a PS3 or Xbox 360.The Piston is UNNECESSARILY small. People don't need or want a gaming device that small that has to plug into things. There is no reason to make something that mainly plugs into the TV smaller than everything else that does the same, such as a Bluray/DVD player, PS3, Xbox 360.

It might be nice for it to be smaller, but it's not necessary, and it's stupid to do so at the expense of function and affordability.Rather than making something people might want, they made something they wanted to make, and then tried to market it. It's like what Apple do, only they aren't Apple, so they can't bring the market round, and they can't command a massive price premium.

Alienware X51 is about the size of a typical console, dual slot GPU, optical drive, quad core x86 processor. Would fit under/next to your TV no problem.Cheaper than the Piston, more powerful. Standard components so you can upgrade it yourself if you really want.Sure, it might be 3 or 5 or whatever times the size, BUT THAT'S STILL SMALL!

Xi3, for its part, has clarified that the Piston will ship with a Windows operating system at its core, so it can support the platform "where the vast bulk of game software and computer gamers are today."

I manage to play a handful of games on Linux thanks to that including all of Blizzard's offerings and even recently League of Legends. They aren't without their hiccups, sure, but to suggest that Linux can't be used for modern gaming is an antiquated way of thinking.

Not for people who want to spend their time actually playing the games instead of fucking with Wine configurations to try and get something to work.

Dedicated PC gamers will scoff at the price/performance factor (never mind the need to add Windows as a cost factor if you want real game support).

HTPC users already know how to minimize both cost and form factor.

Console only gamers will laugh at the price/performance ratio versus the PS4, WiiU, and next Xbox consoles.

Those in-between, will be best suited by a custom built PC and one or two consoles of choice (for not much more than a single Xi3 box).

So - who is this device targeted towards? I'm not trying to being dense or snarky; I really want to know!

Considering the PS4 is built on the same platform the Xi3 is built on, the R-Series APUs and is using a mildly less capable APU compared to the rumored PS4's A10-5800K then it is for people who want a PS4 with less performance and costing more than twice as much.

The PS4 is built on a 8-core Jaguar (28nm) CPU and integrated GCN-graphics roughly equivalent to a HD 7850. This Xi3 is not even in the same league as dev hardware and it's not strong enough to really play anything. A HD8670M would be much faster yet alone a HD7770. There are quite small cases that fit full size videocards with raisers now for that matter.

Old devkits rumors does nobody any good in repeating when Sony has announced the PS4 and hardware specs already at the feb 20th event.

Dedicated PC gamers will scoff at the price/performance factor (never mind the need to add Windows as a cost factor if you want real game support).

HTPC users already know how to minimize both cost and form factor.

Console only gamers will laugh at the price/performance ratio versus the PS4, WiiU, and next Xbox consoles.

Those in-between, will be best suited by a custom built PC and one or two consoles of choice (for not much more than a single Xi3 box).

So - who is this device targeted towards? I'm not trying to being dense or snarky; I really want to know!

Considering the PS4 is built on the same platform the Xi3 is built on, the R-Series APUs and is using a mildly less capable APU compared to the rumored PS4's A10-5800K then it is for people who want a PS4 with less performance and costing more than twice as much.

Are you conveniently forgetting the benefits of a proprietary system versus an open architecture?

Like it or not, consoles can do much more on limited hardware due to developers ability to dedicate programing to a single architecture. Look at what the PS3 can do in Heavy Rain. The game looks every but as nice as Crysis 2 (save the update that included super hi-res textures and DX11 usage like tesselation). Meanwhile, the rig to run Crysis 2 with full DX11 features and hi-res textures costs more than a PS3 or Xbox360.

I love me some high end PC gaming (my recent build is insane*). But, I well know that API's are bottlenecks to performance. Hence why high end rigs can push more polys and textures, but don't look significantly better than console counterparts (even when developed for PC first).

The Xi3 will be in the same boat - expect zero performance gains from this box, versus what you privately build for yourself with similar components!

* (note, this build will be familiar with my friends from another PC dedicated site )

I'm not really sure where you are pulling that argument from my comment. Obviously a console can pull off a lot more with less, but the Piston is a PC using hardware that can't even out-do the wimpy X1800 GPU in the Xbox 360 when it comes to "modern" games.

Dedicated PC gamers will scoff at the price/performance factor (never mind the need to add Windows as a cost factor if you want real game support).

HTPC users already know how to minimize both cost and form factor.

Console only gamers will laugh at the price/performance ratio versus the PS4, WiiU, and next Xbox consoles.

Those in-between, will be best suited by a custom built PC and one or two consoles of choice (for not much more than a single Xi3 box).

So - who is this device targeted towards? I'm not trying to being dense or snarky; I really want to know!

Considering the PS4 is built on the same platform the Xi3 is built on, the R-Series APUs and is using a mildly less capable APU compared to the rumored PS4's A10-5800K then it is for people who want a PS4 with less performance and costing more than twice as much.

The PS4 is built on a 8-core Jaguar (28nm) CPU and integrated GCN-graphics roughly equivalent to a HD 7850. This Xi3 is not even in the same league as dev hardware and it's not strong enough to really play anything. A HD8670M would be much faster yet alone a HD7770. There are quite small cases that fit full size videocards with raisers now for that matter.

Old devkits rumors does nobody any good in repeating when Sony has announced the PS4 and hardware specs already at the feb 20th event.

Excellent point. Even with AMD CPU's performing below Intel's. These console builds are pretty damn powerful when you consider how dedicated the programming will be (especially without API bottlenecks). Forgetting the Xi3, high end gaming looks awesome when it comes to the next gen consoles and high end gaming rigs!

The real kerfuffle will be in the mobile market. A market where high end (but subsidized) smartphone/tablet hardware will be competing directly with high end portable gaming units like the Vita and 3DS. This is the new battleground.

Dedicated PC gamers will scoff at the price/performance factor (never mind the need to add Windows as a cost factor if you want real game support).

HTPC users already know how to minimize both cost and form factor.

Console only gamers will laugh at the price/performance ratio versus the PS4, WiiU, and next Xbox consoles.

Those in-between, will be best suited by a custom built PC and one or two consoles of choice (for not much more than a single Xi3 box).

So - who is this device targeted towards? I'm not trying to being dense or snarky; I really want to know!

Considering the PS4 is built on the same platform the Xi3 is built on, the R-Series APUs and is using a mildly less capable APU compared to the rumored PS4's A10-5800K then it is for people who want a PS4 with less performance and costing more than twice as much.

Are you conveniently forgetting the benefits of a proprietary system versus an open architecture?

Like it or not, consoles can do much more on limited hardware due to developers ability to dedicate programing to a single architecture. Look at what the PS3 can do in Heavy Rain. The game looks every but as nice as Crysis 2 (save the update that included super hi-res textures and DX11 usage like tesselation). Meanwhile, the rig to run Crysis 2 with full DX11 features and hi-res textures costs more than a PS3 or Xbox360.

I love me some high end PC gaming (my recent build is insane*). But, I well know that API's are bottlenecks to performance. Hence why high end rigs can push more polys and textures, but don't look significantly better than console counterparts (even when developed for PC first).

The Xi3 will be in the same boat - expect zero performance gains from this box, versus what you privately build for yourself with similar components!

* (note, this build will be familiar with my friends from another PC dedicated site )

I'm not really sure where you are pulling that argument from my comment. Obviously a console can pull off a lot more with less, but the Piston is a PC using hardware that can't even out-do the wimpy X1800 GPU in the Xbox 360 when it comes to "modern" games.

Which is why you're wrong. My older build is a simple dual core Core Duo, 4GB RAM, and HD6950 (not even a 7000 series GPU, but a higher end mid-range gaming unit). And it runs all but Crysis2 and 3 at the most insane settings. The Xi3 may not be quite even on par with my old PC, but it damn sure isn't totally anemic as you suggest. The Xi3 is just far overpriced, and IMHO targets no real available market.

I guess my monstrous, under powered "Steam Box" I've been using on my TV isn't a Steam Box because of it's size alone...

Your new system may be 5x as big as the Xi3, but it will still be small.You can make a full quad core system with dedicated dual slot GPU in a form factor the same size as a PS3 or Xbox 360.The Piston is UNNECESSARILY small. People don't need or want a gaming device that small that has to plug into things. There is no reason to make something that mainly plugs into the TV smaller than everything else that does the same, such as a Bluray/DVD player, PS3, Xbox 360.

It might be nice for it to be smaller, but it's not necessary, and it's stupid to do so at the expense of function and affordability.Rather than making something people might want, they made something they wanted to make, and then tried to market it. It's like what Apple do, only they aren't Apple, so they can't bring the market round, and they can't command a massive price premium.

Alienware X51 is about the size of a typical console, dual slot GPU, optical drive, quad core x86 processor. Would fit under/next to your TV no problem.Cheaper than the Piston, more powerful. Standard components so you can upgrade it yourself if you really want.Sure, it might be 3 or 5 or whatever times the size, BUT THAT'S STILL SMALL!

I understand the desire to make a small box that fits tightly in a hidden corner of the entertainment stand.

Think about the popularity of minimizing the TV setup. TV's are building in "Smart" features that allow people access information and services previously only accessible through a device connected to the TV.

People are mounting their TVs to the wall and hiding wires wherever possible.

We are moving to a generation where people don't want an entertainment stand with multiple devices. They want a TV on the wall that can do everything and connect to everything.

Of course, there are many things TVs can't do right now because of the cost it would take to get them there and some of the powerful components just aren't ready to be fit inside a 1" thick enclosure.

My ideal situation is to continue to have the big box I use, but I'd like to be able to move that box out to the garage and wirelessly stream the video output to any device in my home.

This is something that Miracast and others like it are promising and I am very excited about those types of technologies because it means I don't need a small box to get the aesthetics I am looking for for my living room.

My wife never liked that I had TheBeast (as we call it) in the living room. We found a place where it can be used as the family computer, but where I have also been able to run a 20' HDMI cable to the TV, but hidden from view (mostly). So it's not making my wife unhappy (gots to get the booty LOL). If I was a bachelor I might not care. I'd have a huge $5000 beast sitting right next to a huge TV

Mac is not a great comparison. Linux is still PC, which is still a huge market, especially when it comes to gaming. PC People aren't locked into Windows7 like they are Mac. Linux has a lot going for it to appeal to current Windows7 or even more, Windows8 users. Ubuntu and Valve can and will make some dents into Windows and Steam users, it's just a matter of if the Steam Box can make it a huge dent or not.

How are Mac People locked into Mac? There is no requirement to run OSX on an apple branded computer.

Apple even offers their Boot Camp feature to help you reboot into Windows. And it's just an Intel-based machine, so you can wipe OSX off and run Windows or Linux entirely if you want. Newprince may have been thinking of the old PowerPC days, where you were (effectively) locked into MacOS. There were a couple Linux builds for PowerPC, but they never had much of a following, especially once OS X landed.

Dedicated PC gamers will scoff at the price/performance factor (never mind the need to add Windows as a cost factor if you want real game support).

HTPC users already know how to minimize both cost and form factor.

Console only gamers will laugh at the price/performance ratio versus the PS4, WiiU, and next Xbox consoles.

Those in-between, will be best suited by a custom built PC and one or two consoles of choice (for not much more than a single Xi3 box).

So - who is this device targeted towards? I'm not trying to being dense or snarky; I really want to know!

Considering the PS4 is built on the same platform the Xi3 is built on, the R-Series APUs and is using a mildly less capable APU compared to the rumored PS4's A10-5800K then it is for people who want a PS4 with less performance and costing more than twice as much.

Are you conveniently forgetting the benefits of a proprietary system versus an open architecture?

Like it or not, consoles can do much more on limited hardware due to developers ability to dedicate programing to a single architecture. Look at what the PS3 can do in Heavy Rain. The game looks every but as nice as Crysis 2 (save the update that included super hi-res textures and DX11 usage like tesselation). Meanwhile, the rig to run Crysis 2 with full DX11 features and hi-res textures costs more than a PS3 or Xbox360.

I love me some high end PC gaming (my recent build is insane*). But, I well know that API's are bottlenecks to performance. Hence why high end rigs can push more polys and textures, but don't look significantly better than console counterparts (even when developed for PC first).

The Xi3 will be in the same boat - expect zero performance gains from this box, versus what you privately build for yourself with similar components!

* (note, this build will be familiar with my friends from another PC dedicated site )

I'm not really sure where you are pulling that argument from my comment. Obviously a console can pull off a lot more with less, but the Piston is a PC using hardware that can't even out-do the wimpy X1800 GPU in the Xbox 360 when it comes to "modern" games.

Which is why you're wrong. My older build is a simple dual core Core Duo, 4GB RAM, and HD6950 (not even a 7000 series GPU, but a higher end mid-range gaming unit). And it runs all but Crysis2 and 3 at the most insane settings. The Xi3 may not be quite even on par with my old PC, but it damn sure isn't totally anemic as you suggest. The Xi3 is just far overpriced, and IMHO targets no real available market.

The A10-4600M (presumably the process xi3 is using, it's a 3.2ghz quad core, 35W processor), on the other hand, can manage 16FPS in Crysis 2 at 1600x900. For Skyrim, with MSAA off (which sucks a huge amount of GPU power), it manages 30FPS at 1600x900. For comparison, your GPU manages 90FPS with MSAA 4x on and a higher level of AF on at 1680x1050. Triple the number of frames with better quality graphics.

The generational changes are nothing compared to the high/low end changes, the 6950 was higher up the scale for it's generation so it's about the same as the 7850 now (and slower than the 7950). The 6950 is a 150W GPU though, the entire Piston system draws 40W, there's only so much you can do with that kind of power.

My wife never liked that I had TheBeast as we call it in the living room. We found a place where it can be used as the family computer, but where I have also been able to run a 20' HDMI cable to the TV, but hidden from view (mostly). So it's not making my wife unhappy (gots to get the booty LOL). If I was a bachelor I might not care. I'd have a huge $5000 beast sitting right next to a huge TV

I've used monoprice to put together HDMI, RJ45, audio ports in a wall plate that sits nicely hidden behind the TV so that I can place the connected devices in more obscure areas. I think the worst part of the whole things was cleaning up my mess (as usual).

Dedicated PC gamers will scoff at the price/performance factor (never mind the need to add Windows as a cost factor if you want real game support).

HTPC users already know how to minimize both cost and form factor.

Console only gamers will laugh at the price/performance ratio versus the PS4, WiiU, and next Xbox consoles.

Those in-between, will be best suited by a custom built PC and one or two consoles of choice (for not much more than a single Xi3 box).

So - who is this device targeted towards? I'm not trying to being dense or snarky; I really want to know!

Considering the PS4 is built on the same platform the Xi3 is built on, the R-Series APUs and is using a mildly less capable APU compared to the rumored PS4's A10-5800K then it is for people who want a PS4 with less performance and costing more than twice as much.

Are you conveniently forgetting the benefits of a proprietary system versus an open architecture?

Like it or not, consoles can do much more on limited hardware due to developers ability to dedicate programing to a single architecture. Look at what the PS3 can do in Heavy Rain. The game looks every but as nice as Crysis 2 (save the update that included super hi-res textures and DX11 usage like tesselation). Meanwhile, the rig to run Crysis 2 with full DX11 features and hi-res textures costs more than a PS3 or Xbox360.

I love me some high end PC gaming (my recent build is insane*). But, I well know that API's are bottlenecks to performance. Hence why high end rigs can push more polys and textures, but don't look significantly better than console counterparts (even when developed for PC first).

The Xi3 will be in the same boat - expect zero performance gains from this box, versus what you privately build for yourself with similar components!

* (note, this build will be familiar with my friends from another PC dedicated site )

I'm not really sure where you are pulling that argument from my comment. Obviously a console can pull off a lot more with less, but the Piston is a PC using hardware that can't even out-do the wimpy X1800 GPU in the Xbox 360 when it comes to "modern" games.

Which is why you're wrong. My older build is a simple dual core Core Duo, 4GB RAM, and HD6950 (not even a 7000 series GPU, but a higher end mid-range gaming unit). And it runs all but Crysis2 and 3 at the most insane settings. The Xi3 may not be quite even on par with my old PC, but it damn sure isn't totally anemic as you suggest. The Xi3 is just far overpriced, and IMHO targets no real available market.

You know that your old VLIW4 HD6950 is roughly 2.25 TFLOPS SP? The R-464L has a GPU of about 380 GFLOPS SP. Plus don't got 160GB/s memory bandwidth. A HD7750 (GCN) or HD7750M is much much faster here. The new mobile Mars/8000M series 8550-8770M with the same numbers of stream processors as the APU is also much much faster.

Plus as your HD6950 uses the same architecture we can draw this comparison your gpu has 1408 stream processors and the R-464L has 384 at around half the clock. It's around six times as powerful.

Honestly, my ideal solution would be a mac mini with a thunderbolt external PCI-e enclosure holding an enthusiast-level graphics card. But nobody seems to be releasing that, even though we're all in a "take my money please" type situation.

The problem is that graphics card makers have never been very enthusiastic about supporting Macs. It's a lot easier now that they're Intel-based, but they still seem pretty lethargic about offering specific support. And Lightning really hasn't caught on yet outside the Mac sphere. So, there's not a large audience for that.

Dedicated PC gamers will scoff at the price/performance factor (never mind the need to add Windows as a cost factor if you want real game support).

HTPC users already know how to minimize both cost and form factor.

Console only gamers will laugh at the price/performance ratio versus the PS4, WiiU, and next Xbox consoles.

Those in-between, will be best suited by a custom built PC and one or two consoles of choice (for not much more than a single Xi3 box).

So - who is this device targeted towards? I'm not trying to being dense or snarky; I really want to know!

Considering the PS4 is built on the same platform the Xi3 is built on, the R-Series APUs and is using a mildly less capable APU compared to the rumored PS4's A10-5800K then it is for people who want a PS4 with less performance and costing more than twice as much.

Are you conveniently forgetting the benefits of a proprietary system versus an open architecture?

Like it or not, consoles can do much more on limited hardware due to developers ability to dedicate programing to a single architecture. Look at what the PS3 can do in Heavy Rain. The game looks every but as nice as Crysis 2 (save the update that included super hi-res textures and DX11 usage like tesselation). Meanwhile, the rig to run Crysis 2 with full DX11 features and hi-res textures costs more than a PS3 or Xbox360.

I love me some high end PC gaming (my recent build is insane*). But, I well know that API's are bottlenecks to performance. Hence why high end rigs can push more polys and textures, but don't look significantly better than console counterparts (even when developed for PC first).

The Xi3 will be in the same boat - expect zero performance gains from this box, versus what you privately build for yourself with similar components!

* (note, this build will be familiar with my friends from another PC dedicated site )

I'm not really sure where you are pulling that argument from my comment. Obviously a console can pull off a lot more with less, but the Piston is a PC using hardware that can't even out-do the wimpy X1800 GPU in the Xbox 360 when it comes to "modern" games.

Which is why you're wrong. My older build is a simple dual core Core Duo, 4GB RAM, and HD6950 (not even a 7000 series GPU, but a higher end mid-range gaming unit). And it runs all but Crysis2 and 3 at the most insane settings. The Xi3 may not be quite even on par with my old PC, but it damn sure isn't totally anemic as you suggest. The Xi3 is just far overpriced, and IMHO targets no real available market.

The A10-4600M (presumably the process xi3 is using, it's a 3.2ghz quad core, 35W processor), on the other hand, can manage 16FPS in Crysis 2 at 1600x900. For Skyrim, with MSAA off (which sucks a huge amount of GPU power), it manages 30FPS at 1600x900. For comparison, your GPU manages 90FPS with MSAA 4x on and a higher level of AF on at 1680x1050. Triple the number of frames with better quality graphics.

The generational changes are nothing compared to the high/low end changes, the 6950 was higher up the scale for it's generation so it's about the same as the 7850 now (and slower than the 7950). The 6950 is a 150W GPU though, the entire Piston system draws 40W, there's only so much you can do with that kind of power.

Actually, my 6950 is faster since I used a BIOS mod (commonly available) to unlock all the ROP's and voltage making it a 6970.

Other than that (my fault alone, as I didn't specify it), you're correct.

But my main point stands. The Xi3 is very expensive for the performance compared to hardcore dedicated gaming PC's and current + next gen consoles. IMHO, this makes the Xi3 a really hard sell to all but the most uninformed gamer.

I don't understand why Xi3 is getting so much press. That $1000 piece of hardware is so underpowered. Dual-core, low-end AMD chip coupled with a mobile GPU. Why someone wouldn't buy a ITX/mATX setup with a proper CPU and GPU for half the price is beyond me. I also do not know why they needed to make it so small. Last time I checked, my entertainment center had room for receivers, consoles, and blu-ray players. I don't need something to be the size of the palm of my hand to comfortably fit on the shelf. Going a touch bigger would have dropped the price and increased the computational power substantially.

You know that your old VLIW4 HD6950 is roughly 2.25 TFLOPS SP? The R-464L has a GPU of about 380 GFLOPS SP. Plus don't got 160GB/s memory bandwidth. A HD7750 (GCN) or HD7750M is much much faster here. The new mobile Mars/8000M series 8550-8770M with the same numbers of stream processors as the APU is also much much faster.

I refuse to talk theoretical/synthetic performance. The reason being, real world is what's important. My new rig is awesomely fun, and was a trip to build. 3DMark performance and gaming in general is out of this world. Still, there's no denying that the synthetic tests I've run on my new rig don't always match up between my old rig's synth benches and overall real world performance.

In fact - there are a number of games that perform worse on the new system simply due to poor coding, API's, general drivers, and the usage of multiple GPU's. This is the problem in PC gaming - no matter how badaass your hardware - you can see really poor performance due to no fault of your rig.

Me, I love to tinker, so I don't care all that much. For those on a budget - things are probably different.

I'll do this as a separate post, since I've gone off on tangential rants in my other posts (sorry, guys).

I'd like to know from those who are interested in the Xi3 gaming PC, as to why they are interested?!? This, more than anything will help get us the reason why this thing might succeed, or die off altogether, analysts be damned.

You know that your old VLIW4 HD6950 is roughly 2.25 TFLOPS SP? The R-464L has a GPU of about 380 GFLOPS SP. Plus don't got 160GB/s memory bandwidth. A HD7750 (GCN) or HD7750M is much much faster here. The new mobile Mars/8000M series 8550-8770M with the same numbers of stream processors as the APU is also much much faster.

I refuse to talk theoretical/synthetic performance. The reason being, real world is what's important. My new rig is awesomely fun, and was a trip to build. 3DMark performance and gaming in general is out of this world. Still, there's no denying that the synthetic tests I've run on my new rig don't always match up between my old rigs synth benches and overall real world performance.

In fact - there are a number of games that perform worse on the new system simply due to poor coding, API's, general drivers, and the usage of multiple GPU's. This is the problem in PC gaming - no matter how badaass your hardware - you can see really poor performance due to no fault of your rig.

Me, I love to tinker, so I don't care all that much. For those on a budget - things are probably different.

What are you whining about? A GTX 680 is theoretically stronger then your old HD6950. I didn't talk about your new rig at all. The R-464L APU isn't badass. Two GTX680s has 18 times the GFLOPS, and even more memory bandwidth then your old HD6950. In practice that is a lot of difference from both your new and old rig. With SLI working or not.

Kyle Orland / Kyle is the Senior Gaming Editor at Ars Technica, specializing in video game hardware and software. He has journalism and computer science degrees from University of Maryland. He is based in the Washington, DC area.